Find at least three ways to reduce you time in the business and implement them immediately.
• Rinse and repeat.
Now that you have finished this book, go back to the start and begin again, this time you may find your objectives have changed.
Posts tagged action steps
• Reduce costs. Look at your business and see if you are leaking money. Stop any advertising that is not returning a result, remove contractors or services that do not make sense any more and check to make sure you are still getting the best deal on any monthly recurring expenses.
• Increase the number of customers. Check your traffic generating strategies and marketing plan. What can you do to improve these to make them more effective? What referral programs could you implement? There is always something you can do, so make sure you identify at least ten, and then choose the three that will have the most impact in the shortest time with the least investment. Next, implement them.
• Increase the profit per transaction. Is there any way you can increase the price point while maintaining great value to your customers? Perhaps you are not charging enough already. Or maybe you need to think about how to add extra value to your product at low or no cost. You may consider ways to bundle more products or services to increase the average per transaction value.
• Get more repeat business. What else could you offer? How can you increase customer satisfaction so they will want to come back? Which products or services could you refer in return for a commission? How could you create some form of a continuity program?
• Look at your business. What can you automate, systematize or delegate? Your time will always be your most valuable asset. The more time you can free for yourself the more you can spend on expanding your business, spend with your family or spend pursuing your hobbies or other interests.
• Add Google analytics code to your website/s. This is free and simple to set up and will give you all sorts of great tracking data. Create your account now www.dlwmmm.com/analytics.
• Setup split tests on your squeeze pages and sales pages. This is not optional.
• There are many different scripts out there to help with this, though there are only two I would recommend.
The first is www.dlwmmm.com/google. A free split testing system integrates into most website systems fairly easily. www.dlwmmm.com/optimizer
The other is built into www.dlwmmm.com/fusion and is the simplest-to-use split testing system I have ever seen. Just click a button and you have a split test running. Easy to view stats give you up-to-date information to see what is working and what is not. Only problem is it only works for sites that are built in FusionHQ. (It’s a great plus though, as no coding or setup is needed.)
• Make a plan to consistently test and improve as you get results. If there is one thing that will enable you to leverage your business to its maximum potential, it is split testing.
• Set up your customer support desk. Make sure links to it are clearly marked on your thank you pages and from your website or websites.
I suggest using something like Zendesk. This is sufficient for most people. Got to www.dlwmmm.com/zend
Check it everyday, or outsource this task (highly recommended), or assign it to someone in your business. It’s amazing how quickly customer support will suck up your time.
• Decide if you are going to use an affiliate manager (recommended).
If so, then find one and let them complete the following list. If not, then you will need to do these action steps yourself…
• Setup your affiliate program.
Decide which affiliate software you wish to use and create an account, or buy and install the software. (If you have the free trial of FusionHQ you already have this set up. If not give it a try, www.dlwmmm.com/fusionhq) Even if you are using ClickBank as an affiliate system, you may choose to use FusionHQ as a way to manage your affiliate tools and training.
• Set the commission levels for your different products, and write descriptions for each.
• Write your affiliate agreement, or modify the template if one is supplied.
Create a set of affiliate tools for your affiliates to promote with. Start with a standard link, then a couple of promotional e-mails and banners and expand from there as appropriate. Add these tools to the affiliate system.
• Create your affiliate recruitment page. Remember to make it like a sales page. You are selling the benefits of your affiliate program. Include why they would want to promote your product, what benefits there are to them, what commissions they can earn, what tools are provided, and what support they will receive.
• Research and recruit. Find affiliates and get them signed up.
• Let them know what to promote, how and when. This should be part of your marketing plan—if not, then add it now.
• Decide which of the traffic generation strategies in this chapter you want to use. For now just pick three (not including an affiliate program).
Write a few paragraphs on how you will apply each one to your business. Add the action steps you need to take to make them happen to your marketing plan from the previous chapter.
• If you need someone else to help with this, assign the tasks to them.
Be clear on what you want to achieve, how, why and by when. Too often one of these critical questions is missed and miscommunication results.
If you are responsible for generating the traffic, then create a reminder system so you follow through. Try and set aside at least 30 minutes each day to work on traffic building. If you can do more, then even better.
• Time to revise your copy again.
Check through your marketing materials and incorporate the strategies within this chapter.
Each time you do this, you should get better and better. Perfection comes through refinement, rarely as a first attempt.
• Look at your overall marketing plan and your marketing strategy. If you don’t have one, now is the time to create one.
Use the ideas in this chapter to apply to both online and offline marketing. Think about how any advertising is being used, and how it all links together.
Write up your calendar of what will happen and when regarding your marketing efforts. Things like advertising going out, websites going live, promotions, affiliates mailing, and products being released. I recommend Google calendars for this as you can share them easily with other team members. www.dlwmmm.com/calendar
This won’t be perfect or complete yet… However, it is important to start somewhere, and to have something you can refine as you get new ideas.
Everything should work together as a whole. Anything working in isolation is only going to be a fraction as effective as it could be when working as part of a bigger master plan.
• Look at any web pages you have. This includes sales pages, squeeze pages or content pages.
Do they look clean and clear? Is it simple to use, to understand and to read? Do they look professional? Are they wasting any space? Do they keep your visitors focused on one thing at a time?
You need to be brutally honest with yourself. Also get feedback off other people—those who have not seen your site before, and who will give you an honest opinion (not just a reply to please you).
• Write a list of all the things you can see that need to be improved. If your list is empty then look again. (I can still find ways to improve almost every page I create or see).
Ask yourself ‘what can I take away’ rather than ‘what do I need to add’.
• Make the changes, or assign someone to make the changes for you. Do not ignore this step, as chances are if you don’t do it now you never will.
• Write out your perfect prospect description. Create a detailed description of a person as though they were real. Include their gender, age, location, employment, religious beliefs, family status, etc. Even give them a name.
• Write down a list of all the perceived person’s fears, concerns and frustrations. Don’t limit yourself to those directly relating to your niche. Allow yourself to think globally. There are often secondary benefits that may come from your product or service you had never even thought of.
• Write down all of this person’s hopes, dreams and aspirations. Again never limit yourself to any particular field. Include personal, family, relationship, career and financial goals as well as goals for hobbies and other interests.
You need all this information before you can continue with your sales letter. If you’re hiring a copywriter, they need to know who they are talking to. You too need to know your customer inside-out for the entire sales process.
• Write a clear description of what your offer is, and both the direct and indirect benefits to the customer. Speak to them as though you are talking directly to them—one-to-one with a real person.
Bullet point the key aspects and expand on the benefits to the customer.
• Why should they believe you? Build a case as though you were in a court of law. Provide proof, scientific evidence, testimonials and authority reviews.
• You will need an autoresponder to set up your emails (for more information on autorsponders, see Chapter 10). www.dlwmmm.com/icontact, www.dlwmmm.com/aweber or www.dlwmmm.com/gresponse are good choices. Go to www.dlwmmm.com/mailer for a 1 month free trial of FusionHQ’s mailer.
• Create an autoresponder sequence to follow up for each possibility in your sales flow.
If you have a simple opt-in only as a list building strategy, look at what e-mails you will want to send them. What valuable information can you share, what practical steps could you give, or resources that may be useful?
• Design your follow-up e-mails to focus first on relationship building (education and value) and second on sales (yours or affiliate referrals).
Do the best you can now, and refine later.
• Setup your autoresponder and paste in the sequence you have just written.
